Distribution of Cardiac Output at Rest

About This Dataset

How the blood pumped by the heart is shared among the body's organs while at rest, as an approximate percentage of total cardiac output. The digestive organs, kidneys and muscles receive the largest shares even before any activity begins.

✨ AI Insight

At rest the body's blood supply is surprisingly concentrated in a few systems. Skeletal muscle (21%), the kidneys (20%) and the gastrointestinal tract (18%) each command roughly a fifth of cardiac output, together taking nearly 60% of all blood pumped. The brain follows at 14% - remarkable for an organ that is only about 2% of body weight - underscoring its extreme metabolic demand. The liver's own arterial supply (7%), the heart's coronary flow (5%) and the skin (5%) receive smaller shares. Notably, the kidneys' large allocation is not for their own metabolism but to filter blood, and these resting proportions shift dramatically during exercise, when muscle flow can rise several-fold at the expense of the gut and kidneys.

Source: Cardiovascular physiology references

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Skeletal muscle leads with 21 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 13 · median: 14.

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Gap in All Time: Skeletal muscle is 4.2× larger than Skin.